Thoughts on politics, law, culture and guns from an eclectic, but mainly center-right point of view

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

A Primer on Flags of the Confederacy

Let's start with history:

This is the first official flag of the Confederacy. It is called the stars and bars. There were actually four variants of this as states joined in. This is the fourth version. These were the Confederate flag from 1861 to 1863.

This is the second official flag of the Confederacy. It is called the stainless banner. It has the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia in the upper left corner of a white flag. Looked a lot like a white flag of surrender. This was the Confederate flag from 1863 to 1865.

This is the final official flag of the Confederacy. It's called the blood-stained banner because of the added red stripe, and it was the flag for the final month of the War.

I've identified the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, already. This is the battle flag of the Army of Tennessee. It's a rectangle not a square. There are a lot more battle flags and state flags involved with the Confederacy but none that matter to us now.

All of these were made by and for Democrats. Democrats were the slave owners in the South. Democrats were the political leaders who traitorously withdrew from the Union and fired the first shots of a war they could not win. Then, after the loss and too brief an occupation, Democrats used the battle flag of the Army of Tennessee as the flag of the KKK, the terrorist wing of the Democrat party, in order to impose a new form of slavery on African Americans in the South through Jim Crow laws, institutional racism and murder.

So the last flag above, called the Confederate flag or the stars and bars by the historically ignorant, is the Democrat (and Dixiecrat) party's flag of shame--racism, treachery and terror.

The Republican Party on the other hand, never used any of these flags at all. The Republicans, after winning the war to end slavery, passed the 13th Amendment (with every Republican in the House and Senate voting for it and only 19 of 74 Northern Democrats voting for it combined), passed the 14th Amendment and 15th Amendments (with every voting Republican voting for them both and no Democrat voting for either), passed the Civil Rights Acts of 1866, 1871, 1875, 1957, 1960 and 1964 over Democrat opposition.

And in the mid 20th Century, Democrats and the race obsessed Dixiecrats started flying their flag of shame more and more; and two Democrat governors, Fritz Hollings and George Wallace oversaw the flying of the flag of the Army of Tennessee over their respective state capitals.

Now let's turn to the states' flags.

This is Georgia's 6th state flag since 1865. The state used to incorporate the battle flag but lately it's the same as the stars and bars with part of the state seal in the middle of the circle of stars. Very clever of the Georgians not to incorporate the Democrat's racist symbol but still tip the hat to the state's heritage.